Friday, December 19, 2014

tis the season for chilling (also nextyear musings)

and considering i rarely friggin update this blog with anything substantial, i've been doing a lot of that this month. and year. eh.

apologies for the lack of updates, and twice the apologies that posts like these seem to be more frequent than any of my other crap. i'm still working on getting the next MAKAIPUNK installation up, but i've been kinda stalling on it. kind of tricky taking snapshots while holding a book open. plus there's also the issue with not having much else to really discuss.

though, with recent things in my life brewing up (good things, don't worry), i might have more to bring when the new year comes than just nitpicking a manga about a video game about demons that also got an anime adaptation. ahem.
  • Dinosaur Planet crap. been doing recordings of a Starfox Adventures LP that kiiiiiiiinda is related to this, but i've been wanting to do more talking about this cancelled gem of a game here since it's been a favorite topic of mine for quite some years. while i do run a shrineblog for DP on tumblr, i'll probably do some more wordier stuff here since blogspot's a better format for those types of things. history and introductory stuff and analysis and research and junk like that.
  • more STEAMPUNK. with the steam holiday sale going on, no doubt people are stocking up on low-priced games for the winter. i'm pretty much content after blowing around $250 dollars on games last holiday sale, but i still wanna talk about steam gems people might not know of or don't appreciate as much. i'll likely be doing this with GOG games and other PC and DOS titles as well.
  • PS2 recs. alongside other older consoles and handhelds and MAYBE arcade games. ordered a ps2 since i've been looking into it for a while, and it came in today. prob will be amassing a ps2 game library over the next year, so i'll prob review some of the lesser-known stuff or stuff i feel people should appreciate more. 'course i'll do other recs of games from other older consoles, and i'm looking into reviewing MAME arcade games as well.
  • more MAKAIPUNK. am aware i've been dawdling on the Disgaea manga readthrough, but i'll be getting back to that shortly. been considering looking at other curious pieces of NIS merch such as some of the artbooks, light novels, drama cds, and other things of note that would bear mentioning (and i could probably get my hands on). hell, there's some chance i'll be reviewing some of the older NIS titles on PS2/PSP as well. we'll see how that fares, though.
  • Warcraft stuff. alongside Legacy stuff (which finally released lately and my adventures in it have been pretty interesting so far), i'm thinking of doing some article stuff concerning older WoW musery as well as stuff concerning the way-older Warcraft RTS games. particularly the third one since the modding community for it is still pretty active to this day, and there's quite some interesting maps out there.
  • fantasy and roleplay musings. speaking of musery, i'm generally a sucker for fantasy stuff and worldbuilding, and i'm surprised i don't blab about it more. also, tabletop rpg stuff. yeah, i should still look into actually doing that sort of deal.
  • 80s/90s cartoon crap. the world needs to know how hilariously bad stuff like Captain N and Sonic Underground are. also, terrible movies. though i'm very likely not going to review Foodfight since i feel like everyone and their mom knows of it at this point. ah well.
  • various other crap i forgot to mention. not like this blog goes by any specific theme outside of things i like, so probably more miscellaneous stuff will pop up in the coming year.
so yeah, even if updates will be scarce for the rest of the month (will be working on chapter 2 of the Disgaea manga though), hopefully i'll get to doing more stuff  in 2015. if real life doesn't continue tugging at my tail, hopefully.

sit tight, folks. be sure to tell your friends. and probably your enemies.

in other unrelated news, LUFTRAUSERS is on sale on steam for six dollars until next year. oh yeah, and there's a trailer for the coming January update for Starbound. get hyped.

Monday, December 1, 2014

STEAMPUNK - LUFTRAUSERS

sometimes a game i rec merits one of those long-winded sort of forewords like i did with my Conker rec; how it stands out to me, a few general opening thoughts on it and games like it, and why i like it amongst other wordy things.

however, i won't be doing that today. namely since this is more in-depth than a standard rec of mine, so most of the wordiness will come from further in. aaaand there's not much i can open on outside of "i friggin' LOVE bullet hell shmups" as far as this game's concerned. so with that out of the way, welcome to STEAMPUNK, a new segment dedicated to reviews of Steam games i particularly like despite being named after an aesthetic i'm not all that fond of.

yeah. anyhow, let's talk Luftrausers.


developed by Vlambeer, Luftrausers is a arcade-esque shoot-em-up (shmup) game featuring multi-directional movement (as opposed to just being top-scrolling or side-scrolling like in other shmups), and gameboy-like graphical aesthetic, and customizable fighter planes. by completing missions, you can unlock more weapons, plane bodies, and engines that change how your plane functions.

and in line with bullet hell games like DoDonPachi and Touhou, it is and will get very hard. though if that sort of thing is your cup of tea, keep reading.